


Wet Earth's Called Mud

by all-or-nothing-baby (BundleOfSoy)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Adorable Assholes™, Angry Dean Winchester, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Divergence, Caring Castiel (Supernatural), Castiel Loves Dean Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester First Kiss, Coda, Dean Winchester Has PTSD, Dean Winchester Loves Castiel, Dean Winchester Misses Mary Winchester, Depictions of a house fire, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s14e19 Jack in the Box, First Kiss, Fix-it fic, Grieving Dean Winchester, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, M/M, POV Dean Winchester, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sad Dean Winchester, tw: PTSD, tw: fire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:00:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22260703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BundleOfSoy/pseuds/all-or-nothing-baby
Summary: Dean, I've got youAnd I realise: he always has.Sheet and fork lightning fires up the whole sky and thunder cracks its huge whip above us, clouds bursting like huge water balloons, the downpour soaking us in seconds.Everything is terrifying.ORFix-It-Fic for Jack in the Box, WHERE THEY ACTUALLY TALK, DAMMIT. And maybe do the thing they should've been doing for 11 bloody years.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 22
Kudos: 54





	Wet Earth's Called Mud

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shealynn88](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shealynn88/gifts).



> I felt incredibly restless and a little sad recently and wrote the first paragraph of this with absolutely no idea where it was going. Then a friend showed me some kindness and it turned into this...
> 
> Thank you, Shea. I bloody love you.

This is home, now. Which is really fucking somethin' when you've spent your whole damn life missing one. But safe as I know I am down here, in the bunker, sometimes— _like right now_ —it's as if I'm suffocating beneath layers of dirt and stone.

So many years on the road, y'know? Fresh air. Mountain air; sea air; hell, even polluted, city air was better than this horrific _no-air_. This feeling, it somehow has the power to take hold of me, even if I'm sleeping, waking me from even my very worst nightmares.

Straight outta the frying pan and into the goddamn fire.

No matter how much filtered-bunker-air I'm pulling into my lungs, I only smell black smoke and bubbling wallpaper, sizzling paint and burning flesh.

_My kid-eyes see her in agony, up there on Sammy's ceiling. And then she's just…_

_Gone_

_My now-eyes see her, a lifeless thing in my arms with blank eyes, black as the smoke from that night. And then all of her is just…_

_Gone_

I can't breathe this in anymore, it's killing me.

I can't breathe this.

I can't breathe.

I can't.

She's gone. _Again._

I gotta get me the hell outta here.

  
  


* * *

  
  


I'm somewhere else, somewhere my Baby led me. Where my broken heart brought me. A forest that looks just like the place where the damn kid took her away from us.

Now I'm cryin', for Mom. For Sam.

_For me_

_For me, me, me_

_For me_

_Oh, hell_

I really don't wanna be here. But I gotta be. At least it's out in the open. At least I'm not anywhere near—at least I can almost breathe.

Air's dry though. Torrid. Like drought season even though it ain't. Although, as soon as I think it, it smells like there could be rain on the way. I look up through salt-water lashes and see steely storm clouds brewing in the west. Where the sun sank like a pebble in water, below a deep purple horizon. Maybe hours ago, now. Maybe not. I'm still cryin'. Cryin' and cryin'. I cry till those clouds are rolling towards me, like giant slate stones through that weirdly coloured, too-big sky.

Then there's bright lights and fuck, he's here.

Not riding in on those rain clouds, though. Not like he used to.

_Shadowy black wings flap-flapping and whipping up a storm, with the wild wind—like so many teasing fingers—rippling through that dark, already-wild hair_

No, the angel had to goddamn _drive_ here. 'Cause some righteous prick who thought he knew best went and stole his wings away from him. Like an unintentional thief in the night. And never even apologized, not really. Not properly, like I know I should've.

As the poor schmuck angel fell further from grace, that righteous prick just fell deeper in love.

Whole thing's like a bad fucking joke, swear to God.

_Dean_ , he says when he sees me, slumped on a log like a useless sack of shit. Running only on scotch and grief and anger.

_Dean_ , he says again when the righteous prick ignores him.

Then his hand is on my shoulder, just like it was in hell, and for one glorious second, I let it be. It's reassuringly heavy and ominously light; both gorgeously warm and hesitantly cool.

Then I'm shirking away from him, like the Wronged Son I am—and the Scorned Lover I want to be. Even though I wanna hold his hand, kiss it, feel it's kindness and comfort on my skin. Because, dammit, I want him. And maybe he wants—

_Fuck you, this is your fault,_ I tell him.

I don't mean it.

Can't see him, he's still behind me. But I can sense the broken look on his face. And it feels like _my_ sin.

You didn't trust me, I should tell him, to show him how much I need him.

You broke my heart, I wanna say, to let him know how much I love him.

But no.

All that comes out is vitriol and _this is your fault_. Which ain't true. I wanna hurt him to let him know how much he's hurt me. Because I'm selfish. Because I… because I stupidly think— _thought_ —that maybe... maybe he does love me back? Why can't this be easier? Shit, why doesn't he just understand?

_Dude can't read your mind, jackass. You made him promise he wouldn't, not ever._

He's the love of my goddamn life and I'm pushing him further away by the day. Testing him, to see if he'll leave me. Like the others. How very fucking _Dean_ of me _._ I can almost _hear_ Sam's face, cracking Bitchface of The Century in my mind.

I stand and say, _leave me the hell alone, man_.

_But Dean, you don't have to be alone_

I shout _, Well, I damn well wanted to be, Cas! S'why I came here_ _on my own._ Then I turn around to look at him. Burn holes into his perfect eyes with my own.

_You know what I meant, Dean_

I laugh at him like the asshole I am _. You sure about that, Cas? I Can't be sure of anything you tell me from now on. 'Cause there's plenty you_ ain't _tellin' me, man. Plenty you should be tellin' me. But you're too busy keepin' secrets from me, like a certified celestial scumbag._

Jesus, it's _me_ who's the fucking scumbag.

_Dean, I…_ but I shove him away. This time it's tactile, literal _._ And he lets me because he cares. I fucking _know_ how much he cares. Why can't I accept that he's trying his goddamn best?

I shove him again, but this time he doesn't move. Not an inch. He's solid, like a rock.

_My_ rock.

And the levee breaks and I'm sobbing.

_Cas, she's gone,_ I sputter.

Then he's on me, trench-coated arms closing around me as I try to push them off 'cause _fuck no,_ I can't handle this. I push and I squirm but his arms, they don't budge. Not because he's so powerful—it's because I don't really want them goin' anywhere. And Cas? He knows it.

_I know it's not okay,_ he's telling me.

I sob more. Keep struggling.

_But it will be. You will be, Dean_ , he repeats as I sob more but stop struggling so much.

_You're okay, Dean_

I got nothin' left. I just sob and I sob as he strokes long fingers through my hair. Just like Mom used to.

_You're okay_

I melt into his chest.

_You're okay_

He's the calm before the storm.

_Dean, I've got you_

And I realise: he always has.

Sheet and fork lightning fires up the whole sky and thunder cracks its huge whip above us, clouds bursting like huge water balloons, the downpour soaking us in seconds.

Everything is terrifying.

_Cas, I love you,_ I say regardless, both an apology and admission through violent rain and violent sobs.

The storm is deafening.

_I know,_ he says back, like my very own Han Solo.

And his quiet words are so loud. Louder than all of this.

With both of us drenched—me, all jello-bones and him, practically holding me up—I bury my face, soaked with more than just rain, into his gift of a neck like it wants to frickin live there. Or has _always_ lived there. And just like that, I can breathe.

_Cas, you smell like_ —

_Like wet earth, apparently. I know, Dean. You've told me twice already now._

I frown into him, not remembering having said it myself until I hear my mouth forming the words again. Except I'm actually saying, _Cas, you smell like the rain and the mud._

_It's because I was created from the same primordial stuff,_ he says softly, then sasses _, and yes, so you keep telling me_

_Yeah, well, wet earth's called mud, dummy,_ I mumble.

_The earth isn't actually mud until it has become wet. And what you smell? Its true name is Petrichor_ — _an ancient Greek word meaning "stone" and "the substance that runs through the God's veins",_ he informs me _. That's why it can't be reproduced. It would be like trying to get blood from a stone... but hey, I didn't want to correct you. That would've been a little rude._

I almost smile _._

_Smartass,_ I mumble, still buried in him.

_Human,_ he replies, still holding me.

I draw my head upwards and we now look at each other as I try my damned hardest not to look away.

_You've always been more human than I am, Cas_

_And you're purer than I'll ever be, Dean_

What a fucking pair.

Then I kiss him as if it's happened a thousand times before. He smiles at me, after—when I gotta forcibly drag my lips from his—as if that were true, and I get jealous of the raindrops waterfalling down his face.

_Let's go home_ , he says.

_You're my home_ , I tell him.

_And Sam_ , he adds.

_And Sam_ , I agree as he leads the way to the car, our arms curled around the other's waist.

He drives us back to the bunker through the truly biblical storm, rain still wailing down on Baby's windshield like it's angry with her or with us, like it ain't ever gonna stop. Wipers workin' double-time, don't even know how he can see to navigate through the hour-ish of river-roads. Those angel eyes, I guess.

But the storm, although still so loud, is not so scary anymore. Not with his right hand holding my left the whole journey back.

I'm still angry. Angry and still so sad, but not with Cas. Also I'm something like... happy. And I'm in and out of sleep. Exhausted, is what I am.

He's just driving. He's just _here._

I think we both leave a little of our thick heads and stubborn asses behind on that broken, deadwood log in the forest.

  
  


* * *

  
  


We stumble down the metal staircase. Sam knows enough from seeing our sodden, sorry asses—with eyes that can't leave the other's for too long—to just let us be for tonight.

For all my snapping and teasing, I really fucking love my brother.

Retreating to my room, having shed wet clothes and laying down, somehow the dirt and stone layers above the bunker? They don't seem suffocating no more.

I think it's 'cause Cas is here, laying with me.

My mattress is remembering wings that are, in fact, still there, wrapped around me as my shivering slows. I can feel them, so gentle and warming, same as his hands on my skin. You just can't see 'em, is all.

It's called faith. Cas taught me that.

I hold onto him tighter. And even if the storm is still raging outside, we can't hear it anymore. Down here, together, we're safe.

_I love you, Dean_ , he's now whispering in my ear. And again, it's louder than everything.

_I know_ , I tell him, through smiling lips.

Because I finally, really do.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> I'm so slow at replies but if you do leave me a comment, I will always get back to you eventually. Promise.
> 
> Kudos always appreciated greatly : )
> 
> Lucy <3


End file.
